The Folly of Sober-Minded Cynicism - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic: I am not a radical. But more than anything the Iraq War taught me the folly of mocking radicalism. It seemed, back then, that every "sensible" and "serious" person you knew -- left or right -- was for the war. And they were all wrong. Never forget that they were all wrong. And never forget that the radicals with their drum circles and their wild hair were right.
Watching reasonable people assemble sober arguments for a disaster was, to put it mildly, searing.